Brazil’s Neymar: Improvising is essential in football

The Daily Mail have published extracts from Brazil superstar Neymar’s new autobiography and the 22-year-old has revealed how important improvisation is in his game.

The Barcelona ace discussed his early childhood life and how he would train for certain situations in games.

“Improvising is essential in football,” Neymar said. “I learned this early in life.

“You might have some play in mind and train for that a lot. But it’s in the heat of the game that you’ll know if it works or not.

“The secret is that it’s possible to ‘train’ how to improvise. How many times did I do that at home? I used to get the ball, set up the furniture and go around dribbling anything that popped up in front of me.

“That’s how I spent my childhood at my grandfather’s house, where I lived with my parents.”

The hope of Brazil went on to reveal where his family lived and how he use to play football in the smallest of spaces.

Neymar said: “We shared a small room: me, my sister and my parents. From the door, there was a mattress to the left, where we all slept.

“In front of the mattress there was a trunk and a wardrobe. There was a small space between the mattress and the wardrobe and it was in this narrow corridor that I used to play with the ball.

“I used to love to kick the ball around there and also liked to throw myself at the mattress as a goalie.”